World’s most expensive tea grown in Chinese panda poo
中國貓熊糞便種出全球最貴茶

Male giant panda Yang Guang (Sunshine) relaxes with some bamboo in hand in his enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland on Dec. 12 last year.公熊貓陽光去年十二月十二日在蘇格蘭愛丁堡動物園內的圈養地，放鬆吃著竹子。

Photo: AFP照片：法新社

Chinese entrepreneur An Yanshi is convinced he has found the key ingredient to produce the world’s most expensive tea — panda poo.

The former calligraphy teacher has purchased 11 tonnes of excrement from a panda breeding center to fertilize a tea crop in the mountains of Sichuan province in southwestern China, home to the black and white bears.

An says he will harvest the first batch of tea leaves this spring and it will be the “world’s most expensive tea” at almost 220,000 yuan (NT$1.03 million) for 500g. Chinese tea drinkers regard the first batch of tea to be harvested in the early spring as the best and successive batches, regarded as inferior, will sell for around 20,000 yuan (NT$94,000).

The 41-year-old, who is so passionate about his new project he dressed in a panda suit for his interview with AFP, has been ridiculed by some in China for his extravagant claims of the potential health benefits of the tea. But he insists he is deadly serious, saying he quit his job at Sichuan University to throw himself “heart and soul” into his company, Panda Tea.

While An hopes to make money from the tea, his main mission is to convince the world to protect the environment and replace chemical fertilizers with animal faeces.